1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of special purpose bags or cases and more specifically, to a bag especially suited for carrying and supporting a portable television and video cassette player or DVD player for use particularly in a vehicle to entertain back seat passengers.
2. Background Art
Long distance driving trips have become an American tradition. The excellent system of roads and highways combined with more comfortable modern vehicles, has made interstate travel by car, sport utility vehicle and the like, a common feature of the family vacation. However, even at the high speeds of our most elaborate highways, travel between locations separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles can be long and arduous journeys sometimes lasting many hours or even days. Therefore, it is often desirable or even necessary to provide interesting diversions to pass the time more quickly, especially for passengers who have nothing more to do than sit and wait to reach the destination. One such diversion is watching video presentations of taped material such as full length movies or the like. Advances in electronics have made great strides in miniaturization of televisions and tape players. The use of alternative television screen technology such as liquid crystal displays (LCD) has made it practical to provide televisions which have easily visible picture sizes but yet are no bigger than a soft covered book. The miniaturization of electronics has also reduced the size of video cassette tape players (VCP) and DVD players so that they are now about the size of a woman's purse or smaller and yet are capable of receiving and playing a full size tape cassette having hours of recorded programming.
The combination of an LCD television and a VCP or DVD provide an ideal time diversion for long vehicle trips. An interesting two hour movie can help pass the time more quickly much like has been done for decades in most airliners traveling cross-country. However, because LCD TVs and VCPs are not yet normally considered original equipment by vehicle manufacturers, there has not been any useful design for containing and implementing TV and player display in a vehicle in an efficient, safe and convenient manner which readily permits viewing by rear seat passengers. Moreover, the plethora of vehicle interior layouts makes it even more difficult to provide a universal carrier for TV/VCP viewing. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a carrier design to both carry and deploy a TV/VCP system for vehicles of numerous different vehicle interior layouts; which safely contains the electronics and yet is capable of positioning a TV viewing screen so that it is readily seen by back seat passengers who can remain comfortably and securely seated.